MILITARY FORCES IN THE ASIA

STRENGTH THROUGH COOPERATION
Military Forces in the Asia-Pacific Region

MILITARY FORCES IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC REGION: A View from Washington
Patrick M. Cronin

As a new century begins, many of the policies affecting security in and around the Pacific Ocean will continue to be crafted by officials residing in Washington. The United States remains primus inter pares in international affairs, and Washington policies can hardly help but influence the rhythm of affairs in the Asia-Pacific region.

This fact is not necessarily reassuring to all in the region, who worry about Washington's internecine feuds and political distractions. For instance, rather than engaging in a deep debate about integrating an ascendant China or sustaining economic growth throughout the region, Washington appears to the outsider to be more concerned with issues such as "Donorgate," the name some give to possibly illegal Asian contributions to the 1996 presidential campaign.

Those not familiar with the kabuki of American politics, however, should not be overly distracted by the cleavage between the Democrat administration and Republican- controlled Congress. The fact remains that most differences aired in the media are not about the fundamental direction of U.S. foreign and defense policy. On these core issues, there remains a loose but large bipartisan understanding that the stakes are too high in the Asia-Pacific region for the United States not to remain fully engaged.

Dr. Patrick M. Cronin is Director, Research and Studies, U.S. Institute of Peace. Previous he was director of research for the Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University. He is a frequent adviser on Asian security and is the author of many publications on Asian affairs.

Moreover, the Clinton administration has tended to hew to a centrist line on which both the executive and legislative branches could agree. While politics dictate some posturing and even vituperative remarks emanating from Republicans and Democrats, there is every reason to expect the administration and Congress to agree on the main issues affecting Asia-Pacific security. Both sides recognize the need to overcome parochial differences when it comes to the challenges facing this most important of regions for the 21st century.

The New Security Environment

The debate over the security environment has shifted for the worse recently, with Washington's assumptions increasingly challenged. For the past decade or more, peace and stability in the region have rested on five main conditions:

That positive engagement was the best approach for China
That stability in the U.S.-Japan security relationship was the linchpin for regional peace and prosperity
That preservation of forward-deployed U.S. military forces was the most eloquent statement of U.S. commitment to the region's peace and prosperity
That the one-China policy and status quo across the Taiwan Strait were seen as best by both Beijing and Taipei
That the preservation of stability on the Korean peninsula was likely to hold for the near future.

In 1996 and early 1997, however, all five of these assumptions or conditions were challenged. Many Chinese now believe that the United States is trying to contain China, and despite clear U.S. Government policy, some in the United States are arguing for such an approach. China also strenuously questions the U.S.-Japan security relationship and the existence of U.S. forces in the region. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) reemphasized this point during the first annual strategic dialogue between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and U.S. national defense universities in March 1997.^[i] Some in the United States and Japan are questioning the continuation of the commitment to forward presence, while China has indicated it no longer sees our presence as more beneficial than detrimental to Chinese interests. Taipei and Beijing are both questioning the viability of the one-China policy. Furthermore, there is a growing prospect of a downward spiral in North Korea. These developments, coupled with the March/April 1996 events in the Taiwan Strait, are severely complicating diplomacy. In short, this is an enormously challenging region.

The Current Washington View

The administration's interests and objectives have been cast in the general, if unduly maligned, terms of "engagement and enlargement." Engagement has meant in practice maintaining America's leadership role in preserving stability among the great powers of the region. Most concretely, the U.S. commitment is expressed in maintaining about 100,000 forces forward deployed in the region. The intent was to reverse the pervasive perception that the United States was on the slippery slope of withdrawing from the region. Though precise numbers will always attract criticism, the fact remains that there is broad support for using the U.S. powerful military instrument to deter and dissuade potential adversaries and to promote habits of cooperation and build new regimes.

This policy has been translated in various ways. In diplomatic relations, engagement has meant active, multitiered diplomacy, both bilaterally, through our defensive alliances and comprehensive engagement with China, and multilaterally, through such mechanisms as ARF and the overall U.S. Pacific Command (USPACOM) policy of cooperative engagement.

As distinct from isolationism, engagement has meant that maintaining an American leadership role in regional and global institutions is in our national interest and that our ability to project power to a region that welcomes it is connected directly to regime formation. In short, engagement is not just meetings. It explicitly refers to utilizing all our instruments of national power, including military force, and it is not without strategic objectives. Perhaps the largest strategic objective is to preserve stability among the great powers. The United States was drawn into the last great power wars in Asia and Europe, so it is in our interest to try to prevent such conflicts in the future.

Thus, maintaining a balance among China, Japan, and the United States should be a priority. Preserving stability among these great powers will mean facing two strategic challenges: the peaceful integration of an ascendant China, and assisting Japan to play a larger role commensurate with its national strength in ways that do not destabilize the region.

These goals of engagement tie directly into enlargement, the other part of the U.S. policy. Enlargement entails building a region based on international norms. Applied to East Asia, it means ensuring that the two divided countries (Korea and China) find peaceful solutions or that we can manage the consequences of the arbitrary use of force. In arms proliferation, it means avoiding the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which clearly raises the cost of any conflict and poses one of the few direct threats to the United States, and enlarging the arms-control regime. Enlargement also includes supporting the ASEAN model of economic growth and modernization and otherwise ensuring the independence of ASEAN as it expands to Indochina.

Through our presence, CSBM regimes, and complementary multilateral mechanisms such as ARF, enlargement seeks to preserve the freedom of the sea lanes of communication throughout east Asia. Maintaining this role is vital for the prosperity of the world's fastest growing region. Looking ahead, the U.S. agenda in this critical region is at least fourfold:

The United States must recognize that whether the region is peaceful and prosperous in the next century will largely depend on China's orientation, and that even while we stand up for our interests, we also recognize that without China we cannot achieve many of our national interests, including long-term peace and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region. Thus our approach must combine both strength and respect and must allow sober thought about China's long-term potential without hysteria and without the use of inappropriate historical analogies in characterizing the country.

As the Chinese economy inexorably surpasses the United States in the first few decades of the next century, we will have some time for comprehensive engagement. This would be designed to reinstitutionalize U.S.-Chinese relations, to foster channels of communication (both to make clear our differences and to cooperate when we share interests), and to integrate China into the international economic order.

High-level Sino-American diplomacy resumed in 1997, following Vice President Gore's March trip to the PRC and a summit meeting on the margins of the November Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Vancouver. The Chinese Foreign Minister has visited the United States, and Secretary of State Albright's attendance at the ARF Ministerial meeting allowed more high-level interaction. The Department of Defense has played a leading role in this engagement policy, including the Defense Minister Chi Haotian/Secretary Perry exchanges and unprecedented ship visits to Pearl Harbor and San Diego, laboratory-to-laboratory talks, and a PLA officer exchange at Harvard University. Former National Security Adviser Anthony Lake instituted a strategic dialogue as well, which may prove significant. However, there are clear limitations to this dialogue. Our discussion with the PLA in spring 1997 yielded the following responses on key issues:

We, in turn, were able to emphasize U.S. interests and policies. Among other issues, the importance of defensive alliances to undergird the region's prosperity was stated. Regarding Taiwan, we emphasized that anything but a peaceful resolution will force a U.S. response. The importance of missile defenses to the U.S. Armed Forces in the region was underscored, and we stated U.S. intention to continue its development. China's responsibilities as a member of the international community were broached as well. We stated that if China wishes to be seen as more positive force in the region, then not only must it adhere to international norms, whether in terms of human rights or economics, but it must also ensure greater transparency of its military capabilities and intentions. Lastly, we restated that we share common interests in stemming the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Our second major objective is to deepen our security relationship with Japan both bilaterally and in a regional context. Bilaterally, we should emphasize the implementation of the defense guidelines and the Special Action Committee on Okinawa (SACO). The original impetus for this is that a crisis may occur in the future that could kill the alliance. The lack of a clear rationale for the relationship after the Cold War would make a possible crisis all the more dangerous.

Noting these destabilizing factors, in April 1996 we reaffirmed the alliance and then launched a review of the 1978 Defense Guidelines. This review covers such critical issues as readiness in event of a Korean peninsula conflict, including rear- area support, resupply, and noncombat roles. It also tries to create a more deliberate planning process and further operationalize the alliance.

In addition, we continue to emphasize preparation for contingencies, including thorough planning for military operations other than war (MOOTW) scenarios on the Korean peninsula and humanitarian/refugee crises. An interim report on the review of the Defense Guidelines was issued in June 1997, and a final report was expected in the autumn.

Although the Defense Guidelines are a process and as such commit Tokyo and Washington to nothing, there are at least three major challenges to be overcome, the first of which centers on Japan's domestic debate. Some in Japan view the Defense Guidelines as challenging Article 9 of Japan's Constitution, because roles such as minesweeping or maritime interdiction to support an internal boycott could lead to Japan becoming a belligerent. Thus, while the Defense Guidelines themselves do not call for any revision or reinterpretation of Japan's Constitution, questions about whether to reinterpret Japan's right to collective self-defense continue to be debated in the Diet and among the Japanese populace.

A second challenge concerns regional reaction to this apparent strengthening of the bilateral security relationship and Japan's Self-Defense Forces. In particular, China is concerned that the alliance is shifting from being prepared to defend Japan to being prepared to defend Taiwan. More generally, the Chinese appear to be concerned that the alliance strengthens the United States and Japan, and China wishes to deflect anything that defers the day when China assumes leadership for regional security some time in the middle of next century. While China's legitimate concerns need to be taken into account, the reality is that no amount of transparency could satisfy senior Chinese officials.

The third challenge facing the Defense Guidelines is operationalizing them so that an improved process leads to improved results, including better and closer consultation between the two governments, more certitude in Japanese support for U.S. forces in the event of contingency, and a larger role for Japan in noncombat missions, whether in peacetime or time of crisis. As we think through the implementation of new Defense Guidelines, it will be necessary to form a new mechanism for implementing the guidelines into operational priorities.

Our objectives in reference to bases on Okinawa include several points. We plan to maintain a sustainable presence so that presence is ensured for the longer term; this translates into 100,000 troops. Our desire is to also to reduce the burdens on Okinawa. We may be able to do more toward this end in the future. However, given the volatility on the Korean peninsula, now would be the worst time to alter our presence in the area, as Vice President Gore has said.

In the interim, there are several steps that we should contemplate to relieve pressure from the base issue. Primarily, the bases must be understood by Japan to be essential to Japan's own security in a much more direct way. The understanding of this link has been sketchy at best until now. The bases should also attempt to make a positive contribution on the local level to municipal and prefectural economic development in Okinawa and elsewhere. More efforts should be made to integrate the bases into Self Defense Forces (SDF) operations and plans, with SDF units resident in previously exclusive American enclaves. And finally, it is imperative that we move some forces northward to Japan's main islands or perhaps Korea if events change.

Another important bilateral issue between the United States and Japan concerns cooperation on means to reduce the potential threat of ballistic missiles. At the center of this cooperation has been a bilateral study on Theater Missile Defense. Whatever the eventual outcome of this cooperation, much of it can be reduced to cooperation on command, control, communications, and intelligence (C³I)in other words, cooperating where political leaders can both accept and afford today but building in interoperability for the future.

We clearly have to think through legitimate Chinese concerns as well, but they are only one factor in the calculus. In the regional context, Japan's relations with China must be considered. For example, any visitor to the Nanjing war memorial in China cannot help but be moved by this poignant reminder of the brutality of war: there are 300,000 rocks scattered about the grounds, each one symbolizing a person killed. We can't forget the past, but we can learn from it.

Japan has been criticized by China for not dealing with the past more forthrightly and systematically. At the same time, China surely can be criticized for having no vision in not taking into account the fact that Japan could play a significant role in regional or global political and security concerns, however broadly defined (such as the U.N. Security Council). Both countries need to be included in the security dialogue. We are not proposing a policy of containment, but rather a political dimension to work together to integrate China peacefully. To achieve this end, there will need to be more discussion, both bilaterally and in trilateral sessions.

In addition to attention to relations with China, the ties between Japan and Russia are critical to our objectives. Russia was previously locked out, whether one looks at the early détente period when Brezhnev hoped to use better relations with the West to attract Japanese capital and technology, or Gorbachev's attempts to reorganize regional security with a large Russian role.

More recently, China has found Russia to be useful, not as an allyChina is still quite wary of its neighbor-but to help counterbalance U.S. influence. China and Russia have agreed to oppose the strengthening of U.S. alliances whether in Europe or Asia. They also have other areas of agreement such as a common desire to reduce border tensions and a lucrative relationship for the supply of arms.

However, this is a flimsy marriage of convenience. In trilateral discussions with Japan and Russia last month, there was a clear intention to improve relations and delink this improvement from the need to settle the outstanding Northern Territories issues, although there was a distinct desire for a peace treaty before the end of the century on this as well. Some of this improvement includes support of Russia's early accession into APEC and addition to the Group of 7 industrial nations, and also Japanese accession to the U.N. Security Council.

In the security realm, there is a need for concrete, demonstrable measures. This would include instituting an annual trilateral discussion at the two-star level among CINCPAC, Russia's Far East Military district, and Japan's Joint Staff Office. Also, we should increase exercises, ship visits, observers, and use of the Asia-Pacific center and use the O-6 working group to share regional assessments and discuss transparency.

Critical to our objectives in the region is also improvement of Japanese relations with the Republic of Korea. Trilateral discussions have been underway for some time but had not yielded the desired results until recently. A marked improvement has been seen in that there is now a clear acceptance of a legitimate Japanese SDF role in a humanitarian relief operation or refugee crisis, though it is understood that there will be no Japanese combat forces on the Korean peninsula.

There was a crisis coordination seminar conducted among the three governments at the U.S. National Defense University in April 1997 to help understand the most effective ways to cooperate in event of a refugee or humanitarian crisis, in which this will be discussed further. Clearly, Japan can be an enormously constructive country for this region, and it is in the U.S. interest for Japan to play critical roles.

The Korean Peninsula

Let's turn to the Korean peninsula, where the ground may be shifting rapidly under our feet. Korea was expected to change soon from its status quo in one of two directions: peaceful dialogue or collapse and war. The Four-Party Talks may soon shift the dynamic as well, so it is vital that we be prepared for both. The current food shortage in North Korea is dire, and it is unclear how many will starve. Meanwhile, Kim Jong-Il holds the leadership but remains closer to the military. The implications of this are unknown.

At the same time, we have seen a concrete improvement in the U.S.-ROK relationship. This has been effected through preparations for contingencies other than all-out war, while not reducing our readiness for that. We have also been working together to coordinate a proper mix of inducements and pressures to bring North Korea into the Four-Party Talks.

In the United States, a sustained, high-level of attention to peace and security on the Korean peninsula is needed. The United States has been extremely vigilant on the issue of Korea and has continuously maintained preparedness for major conflict. (The Hwang defector account is sobering if unverified.) However, there are four elements to ponder and plan for:

First, we must consider the prospect of engaging North Korea in the Four-Party Talks in the short term. While providing limited humanitarian assistance, we should make sure that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) does not mistake the aid for an attempt to solve their systemic problems. They must also address our chief security concern by reducing the military threat to US forces and the ROK, the sine qua non for any serious assistance.
Second, we must plan for the possibility of collapse, implosion, and having to deal with our ROK allies and others such as Japan on such contingencies. This is particularly feasible, as we have worked well with the ROK and on trilateral cooperation with Japan. Planning with China and perhaps Russia will probably necessitate more understanding.
Third, we should anticipate the possibility of a Korean peninsula free of tensions but short of unification. This would entail a democratic, nuclear-free Korea with good relations with the United States, including some military presence. A peaceful Korea would also have good relations with Japan and an absence of antagonistic relations with China.
Fourth, we need to continue to support and, when appropriate, lead serious multilateral security dialogues to build openness on security issues, cooperation, and confidence. The ARF agenda has been supported, but it is a very slow process and has not yet begun grappling with the toughest issues.

A more realistic approach is to continue to foster smaller multilateral attempts at cooperation, a process sometimes referred to as "minilateralism" (trilateral and quadrilateral efforts). There is no shortage of minilateralism in the region, including, inter alia, workshops representing the U.S.-ROK-Japan, U.S.-Japan-China, and U.S.-Japan-Russia.

In addition to these northeast Asian efforts, however, we must be mindful of a long-term trend toward the rising importance of Southeast Asia, too. As we think about our presence in the longer termchanges on the Korean peninsula, reducing burdens on Okinawawe should seek a greater pivot in Southeast Asia and Australia. This presence could be more in the sense of places not bases," which is to say that presence would not be confined to or consist mostly of large, permanent bases, but instead would include a heightened defense engagement with CINCPAC at the lead.

Relations with our key Southeast Asian interlocutors have been improving, including those with countries with which we have had some troubles, such as Vietnam and the Philippines. There is also a strong desire to keep the momentum in our dialogue and for cooperation with Southeast Asia, as well as with democratic India.

Conclusion

In conclusion, let us return to the U.S. objective. Given the complexity of relations, the notion of preparing for the worst but hoping for the best applies to the overall region. On this 50th anniversary of the Marshall Plan, Americans should reflect in the Pacific context on how to build a new international community based upon cooperative and peaceful relations, open markets, and political pluralism. The United States, through defensive alliances, presence, engagement, and multilateral activities, is helping to shape the environment, respond to crises, and hedge against long-term uncertainties. With these tools in hand, the United States can look to the very long term with great hope.

The strength of the United States is our diversity. This is also true for the Asia-Pacific region. Some see our diversity as a weakness, but it is actually a strength and a beacon of hope for the entire world. This kind of cooperation can be extended throughout our region, and thus the diversity of the Asia-Pacific region can become its very strength. The overall U.S. objective is to respect this diversity while building a community in which we can all enjoy peace and prosperity in the 21st century. USPACOM and Asia-Pacific Center are on the front lines of this objective, but all of us have a role to play. We are different, but we are also part of the same humanity. It just depends on your vantage point.

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